Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 29 May 1913, Page 21

Current Topics

Praise in Unexpected Quarters It is not often, we imagine, that a Catholic paper receives words of praise from an Orange publication; and when it does so there can at least be no manner of doubt as to the sincerity of the compliment. The organ of Orangeism in New Zealand —the Nation, —a, paper that is not as well known as its editor would like it to be, published in a recent issue a lengthy extract from the Bishop of Newport’s exhortation to Catholics to heartily support the Catholic press, and added the following comment : ‘ That such counsel does not fail in its purpose is shown in their (the Catholics’) . many really great triumphs of journalistic enterprise, of which the Tablet is a worthy specimen.’ In a previous issue, some short time after the reduction in price of the N.Z. Tablet, the Nation referred to our modest selves as ‘a wonderful triumph of cheap journalism.’ After that, let no querulous Catholic complain that he is not getting value for his money. A Fair Suggestion Considering the extent to which a patient and long-suffering public has been plagued and bored with premature announcements of the discovery of the ‘ missing link,’ the following suggestion from Mr. G. K. Chesterton seems an entirely fair and reasonable proposition. It was made while the brilliant writer was still on the staff of the London Daily News : ‘ There may be such a thing as the Missing Link. But I object to the scientist announcing him' long before he has discovered him. Let us leave them (the scientists) on some populous but remote island (under strict supervision, of course) and then let us have a holiday, and hear no more about them, until they have really, though remotely, approached to finding something out. Let us lock them up as a jury is locked up, without food or drink, until they have found the Missing Link.’ An Injudicious Nomination We,learn from our Presbyterian contemporary, the Outlook, that Mr. John R. Mott, who had been nominated by President Wilson as American Ambassador to the Chinese Republic in Peking, has respectfully declined the appointment. Therein Mr. Mott has shown wisdom and sound judgment; and he has probably rendered a real service to the Wilson Government by saving them from the consequences of what seems to have been widely regarded in America as a distinct faux pas on the part of the new President. According to the testimony of his friends, Mr. Mott is a man of unusual gifts and of an impressive personality. But he has committed himself to utterances which would make it impossible for him, consistently with his expressed convictions and beliefs, to discharge the duties of American Ambassador in China without directly or indirectly using the position to further the aims and schemes of certain Protestant Foreign Mission organisations to which he is attached. Mr. Mott is not only a leader of the Young Men’s Christian Association, but he is the founder and moving spirit of what is called in this country the ‘ Christian Student Movement,’ or what is known in America as the ‘ Student Volunteer Movement.’ This is pre-eminently a missionary organisation ; and at one of its recent conferences it officially advised young men to enter the United States Diplomatic and Consular Service so as to more effectually help the work of (Protestant) Foreign Missions. In a recent letter, twice printed in the pages of the Outlook, Mr. Mott writes in part as follows; ‘ Never have I found such a dead-ripe field as that presented by the students of China to-day. It is not unlike that of the Government schools of Japan in the late eighties. God grant that more fully than in those days we may recognise the day of our visitation and press our unprecedented advantage ! It would be difficult to set a limit to what might be accomplished among the students of China were there a sufficient number of reapers.’ Holding

such views, Mr.-Mott would clearly have placed himself-: ih a false position if he had undertaken to discharge) the delicate and responsible duties attached to the post of American Ambassador in China at the present time. / „ ‘ * -• ' - „ - '-- As we have said,7 the nomination, outside of the; ecclesiastical circles specially interested, was regarded in America as. a blunder; and the following pungent | comment in the New York Herald: of March 28 found wide approval : ‘ The propriety of making our diplomatic service an adjunct to the foreign mission movement may be doubted. Inasmuch, however, as President; Wilson has declared himself in favor of thus combining) Church and State by his selection of Mr. John R. Mott, the Young Men’s Christian Association leader) for the post of Minister to China, we rise' to nominate for Ambassadorships the eminent Rabbi Stephen Wise and the Very Rev. Mgr. John J. Dunn, head of the: Society for the Propagation of the Faith. There should be a fair division. The high character and ability of our nominees must be universally conceded. But it would be questionable whether they would have the bad taste to accept.’ Divorce or No Marriage’: A Distinction with a Difference A correspondent has sent us a cutting from the : Otago Witness containing a cablegram from Rome;) dated 2/th ult., intimating that ‘ the Pope has dissolved the marriage of Prince George of Bavaria and the Archduchess Isabelle, who regains her status in the Royal House of Austria.’ We had already noted and filed the message when it appeared in the daily press; and in the course of two or three weeks our Home files will) probably put us in full possession of all the facts. In the meantime we need hardly point out, what Catholics already know, that the Pope did not, and could not, permit, much less grant, a divorce in the ordinary sensei of the expression, by which is meant a dissolution, of a validly celebrated and duly consummated marriage; The absolute indissolubility of the bond of marriage between parties who have been validly wedded and have once lived together as man and wife is unfalteringly) and unflinchingly maintained -by the Catholic Church with the whole weight of her immutable authority. The) Church, moreover, teaches that the indissolubility of the marriage bond thus properly created and completed is matter of Divine law, and that neither she nor any power upon earth has any power to dispense from it. The Church dispenses from her own law, but not from the laws of her Master. And in the historic case of Henry VIII. she has given proof of: her sincerity and inflexible integrity in being ready even to sacrifice the allegiance of a whole kingdom rather than betray this sacred and saving principle. Such an expression, therefore, as ‘ dissolved the marriage ’ —as it occurs in the above quoted cable —means nothing more than that the Pope formally declared null that which was not a real marriage, either because not validly contracted dr | because not consummated. In the particular case in . question, incompatibility of temper seems to have manifested itself at the very outset; and on the third day of the honeymoon the bride left her partner and returned to Vienna. Under the circumstances the conjecture may be hazarded that the case is one of a dissolution of what is technically known as matrimonium rat urn sed non consummatum —marriage ratified but not consummated, or, in other words, marriage celebrated but in which the parties have never lived together as man and wife. * , » * The general principles bearing on all such cases, in which nullity of marriage is declared by the Holy See, are admirably stated by the reverend and learned editor of the Tasmanian Monitor. After quoting the cable, our contemporary remarks: ‘What, then, becomes, it will be asked by some, of the boast of the Catholic Church that divorce is non-existent among Catholics ? Surely, if the. Pope can dissolve a marriage he must recognise the possibility of divorce under exceptional circumstances at least. Nothing is farther from the

truth. Neither Pope nor Ecumenical Council, nor any possible authority in Church or .State can dissolve a marriage once validly contracted and consummated. Hence Clement III: could not grant a divorce between Henry VIII. and Queen Catherine of Arragon, nor would Pius VII. listen to Napoleon's request for a divorce in the case of his brother Jerome's marriage with Miss Patterson of Baltimore, though that lady was a non-Catholic. The Church, however, can declare, 'an apparent marriage, even solemnly celebrated and consummated, is null and void, for the very reason that it is only an apparent and not a real valid marriage. ? For instance,- if a brother and sister had, even inculpably, gone through the marriage ceremony and lived together as a married couple,' when the relationship was discovered the nullity of the marriage would be instantly announced by the Church; or, if it was discovered in another case after a supposed marriage that one of the parties had a spouse living, the decree of nullity of their present union would be pronounced. Consanguinity in certain cases, solemn vows Sacred Orders, adultery with promise of marriage, violence, grave fear, abduction, clandestinity, and similar great impediments are reasons that necessitate declarations of the nullity of marriages. In these cases the Pope does not divorce -married couples, but simply declares that no marriage existed between them from the beginning. We of course are ignorant of the reasons that induced the Holy See to declare that Prince George of Bavaria and Archduchess Isabelle were never married, though they may have gone through the solemn ceremony of marriage, but the Pope certainly did not dissolve their marriage, which never really existed. It is well that this fact'-should he-thoroughly understood by Catholics in order that they may effectively dispel the false impressions made on their Protestant friends, who so often mistake a declaration of. the nullity of an apparent marriage for a divorce and dissolution of a real marriage once validly contracted and consummated.'

Presbyterian ism and the State

. In the Otago Daily % Times l of Tuesday, May 20,--that is, the day after Bishop Cleary had left Dunedintwo or three, letters appeared purporting to be criticism of his Lordship's very successful lecture on the Bible-in-schools question. Not one of them calls for any reply, for the simple reason that not one of them makes the slightest attempt to face and meet the. moral issues involved in the League's proposals and which were so insistently and tellingly emphasised by Bishop Cleary. The most objectionable in tone is the communication from the Rev. W. Gray Dixon, minister of the Roslyn Presbyterian Church, who cuts a sorry figure and presents a sorry spectacle in his contribution to the discussion. Most of us have seen or read of the famous cartoon of Punch in which, in the days when bigotry was rampant in England, a prominent English statesman was depicted, in the shape of a small boy, chalking on a street door the words No Popery,' and then taking vigorously to his heels. That is the ignominious and disreputable role which the reverend local secretary of the Bible in State Schools League has assumed. The League is asking the country to accept certain definite, specific changes in our Education Act, changes, which affect the consciences of a large section of the people and the pockets of all. Bishop Cleary, as a taxpayer and a citizen, subjected the League's proposals to perfectly legitimate, relevant, and, above all, definite criticism. It was the clear duty of League advocates to come forward with definite, specific replies to the specific points of objection advanced by Bishop Cleary. Instead of doing that, the Rev. W. Gray Dixon gives the public three-quarters of a column of turgid, tenthrate, no-Popery declamation; and, so far as the vital, moral issues are concerned, incontinently runs away! Incidentally, he gives away the whole case for the League by so indiscreetly exposing his hand and thus plainly showing that, so far as he and those who think with him are concerned, the aim of the movement is nothing more nor less than to Protestantise the whole public school system of the country.

:r?r One point only in Mr. Gray Dixon’s letter calls for detailed comment. It is with reference to his attempt to show that in quoting from the Westminster Confession of Faith, Bishop Cleary was guilty of deception, through quoting only a portion of the particular section referred to. We quote Mr. Gray Dixon’s words : ‘ The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and the sacraments ’this the -Bishop uses for his purpose; but the passage continues, ‘ or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, ' that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented and reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed.’ Could deliberate deception go further ? The sentence quoted is not finished, because to finish it-would disprove .. . . the Bishop’s false contention.’ * The reply to this is (1) That Bishop Cleary very rightly quoted only so much of the section as was relevant and necessary to the particular point he was discussing, which was the incompetency of the State, according to Christian and Presbyterian teaching, to set up as a teacher of religion. (2) That the balance of the section, now quoted by Mr. Gray Dixon, does not in the least disprove Bishop Cleary’s contention. There is not a syllable in the whole passage which gives the State power to ‘administer the Word’ or to set up as ateacher of religion. The references to the magistrate having authority I to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church,’ etc., etc., are clearly explained by the Rev. John Macpherson, M.A., in his handbook on the Confession of Faith, p. 137. After quoting the declaration of an early writer, as expressing the claims of the Puritan and Covenanting party, he remarks : ‘ln light of such a statement as this, which fairly represents the mind of the Westminster divines, the deliverance of the Confession must be understood of moral support and encouragement to ecclesiastical officers in the administration of doctrine and discipline.’ (3) The doctrine of the Confession of Faith is reinforced, and Bishop Cleary’s contention supported, by the clear words used in A Brief Statement of the Reformed Faith as 11 eld By the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, written by the Rev. P. B. Fraser, and endorsed and warmly praised by the Presbyterian General Assembly. We quote from chapter xvii., p. 28: ‘We believe . . . that the government of the Church is distinct from that of the State, that their spheres are distinct and independent, and that the government of the one has no authority, upon any pretence, either to make or execute law within the legitimate domain of the other.’ (4) The Rev. W. Gray Dixon was well aware that the words which he quotes have been modified, or, rather, to some extent repudiated, by subsequent Declaratory Acts adopted by the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland. It was an act of charity, as well as of fairness, for Dr. Cleary to abstain from quoting, for example, the sentence: ‘lt is his (the magistrate’s) duty to take order that ... all heresies be suppressed.’ Wo quote the Declaratory Act (Clause 5) of the United Presbyterian Church dealing with this section of the Confession : ‘That in regard to the doctrine of the Civil Magistrate, and his authority and duty in the sphere of religion, as taught in the Confession of Faith, this Church holds that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only King and Head of the Church, and is the Head over all things to the Church which is His body ; disapproves of all compulsory or persecuting and intolerant principles in religion; and declares that she does not require approval of anything in the Confession of Faith that teaches or may be supposed to teach such principles.’ A somewhat similar Declaratory Act was drawn up by the Free Church Assembly (Scotland) in 1846; and was adopted by the Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland. As*we have said, Mr.*' Gray Dixon knows these things; and knowing them, it is he, and not Bishop Cleary, who has been guilty of deception. ” " i